contemplation

Apparently they don’t have bacon. Or chocolate. Well, they do have chocolate but it’s not chocolate. Or the metric system. Even the bits I do understand I don’t get. Their gallons are bigger. And what’s with water boiling at 212 degrees?

It’s going to take more than 12 hours to get home. But then mum says you’re never really that far away wherever you are on the planet – you could be home within 24 hours if you really wanted to be. I guess the bigger problem is that it’ll cost over $500 to get home. Which puts a limit on visits. That said, I don’t see a lot of people more than 3 or 4 times a year anyway, so really it’s no different. Except usually we’re in the same time zone. Still, with social networking, late hours and early starts it’ll probably take care of itself. People stay in touch with people they want to stay in touch with. I can use it as a ‘friendship test’. If you want a cheap holiday you have to post at least one thing a week to my timeline.

I’ve promised myself I’ll write. I have this vision of sitting in a coffee house, not unlike this one (although they don’t have to provide toilets, which could be an issue..) tapping away at the keyboard. This is a good thing. I’ve wanted to get more writing done for a long time. To be honest, I won’t have much else to do. I’m not going to know anyone. In some ways, that’s quite a freeing thought: I won’t know anyone, but they won’t know me. The cool, interesting, awesome person I want to be, with a well developed sense of style and myself – I can be that person. Or whoever else I fancy being. And no one will have seen my wardrobe, so really everything I own is new. Which is good, because I have no idea when, or even if, I’ll get a job to pay for anything else!

The woman behind me in the cafe is talking about seeing Birdsong on the TV. Her voice is shrill and continuous. I’ll have to get used to that in a whole new accent. I should probably practice not correcting the pronunciation of ‘herb’ and ‘aluminium’. A plus here is that I already watch a lot of their TV. I’ll be ahead in some series. I might even get a few more that will probably be very good and never make it over here. A minus would be my uncontrollable mimicking of accents. It generally sounds like I’m taking the piss. Do they say ‘taking the piss’? They don’t say ‘have a go’. Apparently it’s ‘take a shot’. Odds are I’m going to baffle a lot of people. The sort of person introduced with a caveat. “Don’t take her the wrong way, she’s English.”